Londonis to have a dedicated free-to-air television channel for the first time, thebroadcasting watchdog Ofcom has announced.

The
new London Live channel will broadcast to around 4 million homes and be run by
Evening Standard Television (ESTV), a company wholly-owned by Evgeny Lebedev,
owner of the London Evening Standard , The Independent and i newspapers.

ESTV
beat competition from four rival bids to host the new service, which will enjoy
a prominent position at channel 8 on the Freeview electronic programme guide.
It will also be shown at channel 117 on Sky and on Virgin, IPTV and other
platforms. London Live will utilise the editorial resources of both the Evening
Standard and The Independent.

Announcing
its decision this morning, Ofcom said: “ESTV demonstrated the greatest
understanding of London’s diverse communities by putting forward proposals
which would allow representation of those communities whilst not excluding
others as a result.”

The
broadcast regulator was impressed with plans in the ESTV bid for “hyper local” coverage
of individual districts of the capital on the web-based part of the London Live
service. “ESTV’s proposals…provided important opportunities for close local
community involvement, taking into account, in particular, its proposals for
[Internet TV] services in each London borough which would be included in its
programming commitments.”

The
venture represented “an exciting opportunity”, said Mr Lebedev.

“Our
excellent team of journalists in the capital have the best contacts, knowledge
and understanding of the London scene,” he said. “Through the Evening
Standard and Independent, we have proved time and again that we can
deliver fast, accurate, high quality breaking news, features and analysis and
we are looking forward to applying these skills to London Live.”

Commercial
media were enthusiastic about the new outlet. “This is the biggest single
licence awarded since Channel 5 - there’s no doubt that, out of the regional TV
licences, the London licence is the most valuable,” said Adrian Drury, lead
analyst at Ovum.

He
said the service had great potential for integrating commentary from social
media into hyper local news coverage. “There are aspects of the service that
show really interesting vision about how they see local television today,” he
said. “Part of that is their plan to have hyper local video features for each
of the London boroughs on the web-delivered part of the service. They’re going
heavily after live telecasting with social content integrated – so you will see
not just what the news desk says but also what the Twittersphere and Facebook
think.”

Jess
Evans, associate director at Carat, said she expected the service to be popular
with advertisers. “Clients want multi-format solutions - we can’t think about
siloes in media anymore. The same consumer will be watching TV, taking
something online and reading in print. This gives us an extra way to access
them and integrating social media embodies that.”

In
May 2012, Ofcom invited applications to run local TV services in 21 local
areas. The regulator received 57 applications to run the services, including
five applications for the London licence.

As
well as broadcasting on digital terrestrial television (DTT), it is anticipated
that local TV channels might offer their services on satellite, cable and
online.

Ofcom
has now awarded 15 local TV licences, as well as the multiplex licence, and
will make further licence awards in the coming months. Other new local
television channels, which could begin broadcasting later this year, include
Made in Cardiff, Mustard (Norwich), That’s Oxford and Notts TV.